It’s Decision Time for MTA in the Battle Over Bus Service

The board of Los Angeles County’s transit system will meet in closed session today to decide whether to continue its five-year legal fight against a federal court agreement requiring vastly improved bus service.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board is scheduled to vote on whether to simply abide by all aspects of the agreement or try for a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

An appeal would be the board’s fifth attempt at a legal review, one that would infuriate bus passenger and civil rights advocates.

Some activists fear that if the high court took the case and ruled in the MTA’s favor, it could weaken court-mandated civil rights agreements that protect people in a variety of other circumstances.

“Even by considering this, the board is showing its outright hostility, not only to bus riders in this county, but to the cause of civil rights nationwide,” said Eric Mann, head of the Bus Riders Union, the advocacy group that was the lead plaintiff in the court challenge against the MTA.

Despite frequent protests from Mann and others, many MTA board members have remained intent on fighting the agreement because they say an order to buy more buses could severely affect the agency’s treasury.

Over the course of the agreement, the court could force the agency to add hundreds more buses to a fleet already numbering about 2,100. MTA officials say that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly forcing cutbacks in critical highway and rail programs.

“We’re charged with providing not only buses, but all different kinds of mobility in this county,” said Roger Snoble, chief executive of the transit agency, who would not say what he will recommend to the board. “This agreement hamstrings us from being able to do all of that.”

The vote by the 13-member panel promises to be a close one.

Virtually certain to go against an appeal is a bloc led by Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, who has consistently balked at the legal challenges since joining the board last year. The mayor hopes that the three MTA board members he appointed will vote with him, but he realizes he must sway several others.

To make his point, Hahn sent letters to the entire board Monday.

“To continue to challenge aspects of the agreement is without strong legal merit,” wrote the former Los Angeles city attorney. It “is unfair to transit users who deserve the highest level of service.”

Five board members, including county Supervisor Mike Antonovich and board Chairman John Fasana, are likely to vote against Hahn and for the appeal.

That leaves key votes in the hands of MTA board members Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--all county supervisors and political liberals. Each has voted to appeal in the past. None would say which way he or she was leaning going into today’s vote.

It has been five years since the MTA willingly signed the federal agreement rather than face a court battle in a lawsuit filed by bus rider advocates and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The suit claimed that the bus system, which carries the bulk of the MTA’s customers, was being deprived, while the agency was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a subway and rail system.

The agreement bound the nation’s second-largest transit system to a vast upgrade of its bus service and established a strict set of benchmarks by which improvement would be measured.

But, although it signed willingly, the MTA has balked and mounted legal challenges virtually from the outset.

Those efforts have summarily been shot down. A federal judge, a court-appointed special master and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court all turned back MTA appeals.

Most recently, the agency tried an appeal to a broad panel of federal judges. In October, the judges voted unanimously that the MTA’s legal arguments did not merit further review.

Such resounding defeats do not bode well for the possibility that the Supreme Court would even consider the case.

Still, MTA administrators continue to have numerous objections to the court order. They question the power of special master Donald Bliss, a Washington lawyer appointed by the federal court, who has ordered the MTA to buy new buses.

The agency also continues to balk at “load factors”--a statistical tool used to measure bus crowding. Part of the agreement calls on the agency to reach numerous benchmarks. The final load factor goal, due June 30, requires that the number of passengers standing on MTA buses should be no more than 20% of the number with seats. The measure is taken in 20-minute increments.

The load issue has dogged the agreement from the start. The MTA contends that it needs to be in compliance with the measurement only most of the time.

“It’s unreasonable to think there will never be a moment when you don’t go over that limit,” said Snoble, who, like many board members, believes that the standard for determining bus overcrowding is unclear.

He also contends that the 2,100-bus MTA fleet has already met all of the benchmarks.

Bus rider advocates and their lawyers have steadfastly disagreed, contending that not enough buses have been placed into service to ensure that the goal is achieved at all times. The advocates cite data showing that crowding has lessened on some MTA buses, but that other goals have remained unmet for years.

“They’ve put more buses on the road, but they are still far short of where they need to be,” Mann said. “Looking at these violations, how can we back down?”

Some legal experts believe that a Supreme Court review of the MTA case would have far broader implications--spurring other government agencies to seek reviews of their federal court agreements.

“It could definitely do damage,” said USC professor Erwin Chemerinsky. “Ultimately, this is a civil rights case.”

But others, including civil rights attorney Constance Rice, said the matter would not set a precedent on civil rights law.

Rice, lead counsel for bus advocates when the matter first went to court, said the MTA appeal is based on a narrow interpretation of contract law that should not affect other civil rights cases.